It’s a pretty straightforward question, really: are taxes legalized theft?
To belay any confusion, I am asking about taxes promulgated by a just government in the interest of the common good. Simply put: are taxes per se ever just?
“Legalized theft” is a contradiction in terms, which is a good sign that you are smuggling into this conversation modern categories of speech designed to frustrate rational thought on these issues.
The state just does exist for the common good, its existence is more or less necessitated by human nature, and it enjoys divine mandate. For these reasons “submission to authority and co-responsibility for the common good make it morally obligatory to pay taxes,” among other things (CCC 2240).
This is a teaching of the Church that enjoys the unanimous witness of Tradition: the personal endorsement of Christ, the support of the apostles, and the unbroken and continuous teachings of all their successors.
Yes, taxation is theft, or extortion more like it.
Moral relativism is common even amongst Christians, it seems. Always some excuse or another for every act they want to justify. It’s wrong to murder, except… it’s wrong to steal, except… and so on, you know how it goes.
This is an assertion, not an argument.
I’m very familiar with the extremely little that Jesus allegedly said on the matter and the various interpretations of the poetic language He employed. I’m also familiar with the all of the advantages that result from being a moral relativist on these matters. For starters, if you agree to call it ‘right’ whenever the State murders or steals, then your religion has a higher survivability rate.
This is a strange argument. For one thing, there are no “various interpretations” if by this you mean that the truth is somehow unclear from a Catholic perspective. From a Catholic perspective, there is exactly one authoritative interpretation (the one the Church has given, constantly, throughout the centuries) and a functionally infinite proliferation of falsehoods. For another, if submission to authority results in the thriving of the Church that is a pretty good sign that it corresponds to human nature in a real and powerful way. People desiring their own good is the very definition of the natural law, so obviously, the moral liceity of taxation belongs at least to the natural law.
But, calling it something doesn’t make it so. To murder is to murder, no matter how “important” you are (e.g., I’m the King, it’s not murder, it’s execution!) and so on for various other sins that the moral relativists would have you ignore.
This is, again, an assertion, not an argument. Whether or not the execution of criminals constitutes “murder,” and whether or not the collection of taxes constitutes “theft,” is exactly what’s under discussion here.
Unfortunately for you,
they aren’t up for discussion. The Church has already ruled definitively on the matter and your libertarian prejudices are completely alien to the Catholic moral theological tradition. Discussion is closed. Continue at peril of your own soul.
